(Note: There is no research data yet available on how casino dollars may impact education spending, since it is new. However, a number of states already use gambling dollars from the lottery to fund education. The net result: bad for education.)

Many states sell gambling as a painless substitute for extra taxes - and a way to raise money for good causes like education. But an exclusive MONEY magazine investigation revealed that lottery states collect more in taxes and spend less on schools than states that do without the games.1

* Research has shown that gambling funds earmarked for educational purposes provided an initial, brief windfall, but in short order, the gambling dollars simply supplant other appropriates, leaving a net neutral impact in most cases and a net negative in others.

* While funding levels remained relatively static, the general public believes that gambling dollars are creating a windfall for the public schools, and therefore, the public is less likely to support bond issues, tax increases, and other actions to improve school funding. Gambling advertising, which promotes the idea that the gambling proceeds help education funding, fosters this false notion among the public.2

* According to Mary Fulton, a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States in Denver said, "There's a deep and widespread perception among the public that lottery revenues are being used to substantially fund education." This is simply not true. During this decade, states that used gambling proceeds to fund education actually dedicated a declining share of their total spending to schools.

* In states that used gambling proceeds (lotteries) to fund education, net education spending declined from 50.1% to 49% since 1990, according to MONEY Magazine.3 At the same time, education spending has inched up in states that lacked lotteries, from 58.2% to 58.9%. So, gambling dollars don't help education.

* The comptroller of the State of New York did a detailed analysis of the impact of gambling proceeds dedicated for education funding. Here is what he concluded:

"When the lottery was approved in the early 1960's, the public was promised that it would support education. Implied in that promise was that the lottery would add to state aid, rather than merely replace it. Even today, a new lottery advertising campaign perpetrates THE MYTH that schools receive additional resources from the lottery. The truth is that the Legislature and Governor decide how much state aid will go to the local schools and the amount from the lottery is just a small part of that total. Lottery money has never supplemented state aid: it doesn't today and it likely never will.4"

* While we don't have details on how much money supposedly will go to education from this amendment before us today, we do know from the proposals in 1997,5 that the proceeds from slots at the racetrack dedicated to education would amount to less than 2-percent of education spending in the state.

Education Questions

* For this pittance, are we willing to endure the social costs? Are we willing to teach children that "get rich quick" schemes are the way to get ahead instead of hard work?
* What guarantees are there that school funding will be maintained if gambling revenues decline?
* Will you allow the racetracks to sell gambling on billboards and television advertising by saying that gambling helps children?
* Have you calculated how much Pennsylvanians will have to lose at the slots just to gain that 2-percent portion of education spending?

We have...and it's more than $1.5 Billion dollars a year. $1.5 billion a year!

Footnotes
1 Victor Greto, "Addicted Gamblers a Growing Problem," Delaware Online/ The News Journal, 3/9/2003.
2 Gerard Shields, "Where Gambling Goes, Gamblers Anonymous Follows," Scripps Howard News Service, [Gulfport/Biloxi, Miss.] Sun Herald, 8/28/1997.
3 Rachel A. Volberg, "Prevalence Studies of Problem Gambling in the United States," Journal of Gambling Studies, summer 1996, p. 123.
4 Michael O. Emerson, J. Clark Laundergan, James M. Schaefer, "Adult Survey of Minnesota Problem Gambling Behavior; A Needs Assessment: Changes 1990 to 1994," Center for Addiction Studies, University of Minnesota, Duluth, September 1994.
5 Rachel A. Volberg, "Gambling and Problem Gambling in Iowa: A Replication Survey," Iowa Department of Human Services, July 28, 1995.
6 Rex Buntain, "There's a Problem in the House," International Gaming & Wagering Business, July 1996, p. 40.
7 Robert D. Carr, Jerome E. Buchkoski, Lial Kofoed, and Timothy J. Morgan, "Video Lottery and Treatment for Pathological Gambling: A Natural Experiment in South Dakota," South Dakota Journal of Medicine, January 1996, p. 31.
8 Buntain, op.cit., p. 40.
9 Rachel A. Volberg, "Gambling and Problem Gambling in New York: A 10-Year Replication Survey, 1986 to 1996," Report to the New York Council on Problem Gambling, July 1996.
10 Jeff Mapes, "Gambling on Addiction," The Oregonian, March 9, 1997, p. 1A.
11 "1996 Gross Wagering By State," International Gaming & Wagering Business, August 1997, p. 20.
12 Rachel A. Volberg, "Gambling and Problem Gambling in Mississippi," Report to the Mississippi Council on Compulsive Gambling, November 1996, p. 31. (NOTE: The actual percentages were 7.0% for Louisiana, 6.8% for Mississippi.)